Monthly Archives: June 2013

Cold Feet by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is a book about the lives of five girls: Amisha, Ladli, Akshara, Shayna and another girl, whose name is not mentioned, living in Mumbai.

Amisha is getting marries to Derek, an Australian, and she organizes a Bachelorette party where Akshara, Ladli and Shayna are invited.

Akshara is a teacher who teaches English to class X and is in love with her best friend, Mo.

Ladli is Akshara’s roommate. She works in a small graphics design company, feels ditched by her boyfriend and goes to Goa.

Shayna is the weather girl, she works for a television channel.

The unnamed girl stays as a paying guest at Aunty B’s house, and she is in live with Shayna.

Though the stories are nice, emotional and romantic, but I felt, I could not connect with the book. All the girls wanted was a man in their life. I usually finish a book in two days but this dragged on and on. Finally, I could finish it in ten days.

I can say I developed cold feet while reading this book, should I leave it or should I finish it……

Amreekan Desi by Atulya Mahajan is the story of Akhil Arora and Jaspreet Singh who go to the Florida State University to do his Masters in Science Degree at America.

Akhil Arora is an engineer, living in Punjabi Bagh, Delhi and gets a scholarship. His parents are upset and so is Goyal Saab, their neighbor who can’t stop eating Samosa in the Arora house and talking about his son, Priyank. His mother agrees to send him only if his father would go there and settle him. He wants to study hard and get a job. He is very attached to his parents and sister, Aarti.

Jaspreet Singh, Jassi or Jazz is from Ludhiana Punjab, wants to go to America because he feels that America has everything that India does not have After his selection, he even starts talking in American slangs and accent.

The FSU Indian Student Association at Tallahassee informs that them they would have to share an apartment when they are in Florida. Both of them fly to the US on different flights on the 10th of July 2004. In the States, rent an apartment with a third student from India to split up the costs. They shop for grocery, cook, have parties, celebrate festivals with fellow Indian students. They take up jobs to earn money while studying. Like every Indian who goes out of India, they convert everything into rupees.

Akhil is homesick, very sincere, who wants to achieve something and comeback to India whereas Jassi wants to have fun and enjoy himself. Akhil meets Nandita on the flight from India and they gradually fall in love. Jassi wants to date women in the US.

There are a lot of places in the book where you realize that Akhil could be the author potraying himself. There are editorial mistakes, places where the character has been wrongly named and some places I felt that it dragged too much.

How many people would have written a review for a Mills and Boon and that too written by an Indian author, I really am not sure. But here is my review for a very cute Indian Mills and Boon, ‘Monsoon Wedding Fever’ by Shoma Narayanan. It is a very cute book about two individuals, Riya Kumar and Dhruv Malhotra.

Riya, twenty nine, is an executive in a company, and as per company policy, shares a flat with Gaurav Khanna. She is a small town girl very close to her sister, Shreya who is a dentist and her parents. She lives in Mumbai.

Dhruv, thirty two, is an architect and a partner at a Singapore based firm. He is very cynical and does not believe in love. He is fond of his sister, Chutki and treats his brother, Karan, as a friend. He lives in Singapore.

In town to attend Gaurav’s wedding to Madhulika, he stays at Gaurav’s flat and that’s where he meets Riya after twelve years of leaving her. The story goes on and they lived happily ever after.

I loved this book from the word go. The Indianness of the book: the heroine wears Lehenga Choli to a wedding and not a gown, she buys a bright red i10 and names it McQueen.

The best part of the book was that the author had described the feeling of both Dhruv and Riya.

I started Anuja Chauhan’s debut book, ‘The Zoya Factor’ immediately after finishing and writing a review for ‘Those Pricey Thakur Girls’. Simultaneously, I ordered ‘Battle for Bittora’, hoping that it would be delivered as soon as I complete this.

This story is about 27 year old Zoya Singh Solanki who works with an advertising agency, AWB. She was born on 25 June 1983 at Cochin, at the moment when India won the Cricket World Cup and livesat 13, Rohtak Road, Delhi with her father, Vijayendra Singh Solanki and his three brothers. Her elder brother,Zoravar, is in the army. Eppa is their 50 something housekeeper and they have a dog, Meeku. RinkuChachi is her favourite aunt.

At the beginning of the book, she is in Mumbai with her friend and colleague,Monita, shooting an ad with Shah Rukh Khan when her boss, SankarMenon, asks her to come back to Delhi and go with the Indian team to Dhaka to shoot an ad for Zing.

She meets the Indian team at Dhaka at the photoshoot the next day, which is not completed. So,on the morning of the match with England, when she goes to discuss about it, she has breakfast with the team and in passing mentions that she had had breakfast with them once before and the team had won. His time again, the team wins, they start treating her as a lucky charm. When she does not have breakfast with the team and they lose, the belief becomes stronger.

The IBCC (Indian Board of Cricket Control) starts believing the lucky charm theory and she is flown to Australia for the tenth ICC World Cup, she agrees. Rinku chachi and Monita accompany her to Australia.

The Indian captain, Nikhil Khoda does not believe in luck and superstitions but finds her present at the team breakfast on the morning of each match, and they win.

She goes through a lot of personal ups and downs. The country starts believing in her as a goddess, the media love her and hate her at the same time.
I am a cricket fan and I enjoyed the way she has described the matches in the book. Reading the book at the time when the ICC Champions trophy is being played at England and Wales made it all the more interesting.

Eppa’s english is very cute. Rinku Chachi is very nice. Zoravar is an understanding elder brother. AnujaChauhan has written very well, especially spelling the words in the way they are pronounced by the characters like ‘thenk you’.

I loved the book and would recommend it to all cricket fans and also Mills and Boon readers.

‘Those Pricey Thakur Girls’ is the latest book by Anuja Chauhan. She was speaking about it on the Radio One and I was checking out her profile on my phone. I thought I’ll order her books, but then there were already six books that were lined up for me to read, I thought, I’ll read it once I finish with them. Then came the Flipkart 50% sale, I bought it and now, those six books wait while I read it, just like the trains, “last in, first out”. I must thank my friend Shweta for it.

The story is about five alphabetically named Thakur girls, who live on 16, Hailey Road, New Delhi in 1986. Their father, (BJ, as his daughters call him or LN, as his wife addresses him) is a retired judge, who eats maggi and plays kot-piece with his retired friends every evening. Their mother, Mamtaji, is the lady around the house, with her embroidery and cooking. The Judge has two very close friends, Sahas Singh Shekhawat and Balkishen Bau with whom he plays kot-piece. Their neighbours are their chachaji, chachiji and their son, Gulab (Gulgul bhaisaab) who wants to open a gym.

A-Anjini is married to A-Anant and lives in A-Allahabad. They have a son, Samar, from Anant’s first marriage, but once she is introduced in the novel, she is forever at the Thakurs.

B-Binodini is married to Vickyji and stays in B-Bhopal with her 7 year old twins, Bonu and Monu and has an eye on her hissa in the Thakur house.

C-Chandralekha is never talked about because she eloped with and Estonian on the day before her marriage.

D-Debjani alias Dabbu, because she favours the losers like Randhir Kapoor (Dabbu), the mongrels on the street, is the judge’s favourite and heroine of the story. She is 23 and has just got a job as a news reader on Deshdarpan.

E- Eshwari or Eshu, is seventeen, studies in Modern School, Barakhamba Road and plays basketball. She seems to be the closest to Dabbu and the two girls even share secrets.

Sahas Singh Shekhawat is married to Juliet Lobo and they have three sons. The oldest one is Dylan, who is a journalist with India Post and stays in Bombay. He is working on the cause of the Sikh massacre of 1984.

The reference to Campa cola and Gold spot, Mohan Singh Place, Bengali Market, Love 86 was very nostalgic. The book was very funny and once it so happened that I was reading it in the Delhi Metro and I suddenly burst out laughing much to the shock of the fellow passengers.

The book is very well written and interesting. I enjoyed reading. Everytime, I would start a chapter, I would tell myself, I’ll read it after this but then the end of the chapter would drag me on and I must confess that I have even read the book till 2am even when I had to get up early next morning.